After expressing ?serious concerns? with the first official draft text that came out on Friday and announcing that it would come up with its own draft in association with the African nations, India seems to have had a rethink on its next move and is said to be working to improve upon the official draft for the time being.
The new draft ? supposed to have been prepared by the four major developing countries Brazil, South Africa, India and China in association with the African group ? as promised by environment minister Jairam Ramesh on Friday evening never came out on Saturday and sources in the Indian camp said it would probably be premature for New Delhi and the other developing countries to put all their cards on the table.
The developing countries are now understood to have decided to wait for the action of other countries on the official draft before taking the next step. A discussion on the official draft ? that came out from the Ad-Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) ? is slated at the informal ministerial meetings that begun on Saturday and will continue till Sunday afternoon.
Sources said the developing countries were working on a joint draft that would be presented in the event of a deadlock at the ministerial level. ?The draft is being prepared. The only thing is that we do not intend to make it public so soon,? said a member of the Indian team.
India had raised objections to some of the provisions in the official draft, which, when it came out on Friday, was seen to be a significant step forward in breaking the stalemate and putting together a blueprint for the agreement. However, very soon the EU, the US and the developing countries led by India expressed their displeasure, effectively bringing the situation back to square one.
India?s main disagreements are with the provisions relating to peak year and global emission goal for 2050. India is completely opposed to the idea of specifying a peak year in which the global emissions are required to reach its maximum and then made to decline. The official draft did not specify the global peak year but said it should happen no later than 2020. It said developed countries needed to peak earlier than that so that developing nations get some more time after 2020 to let their emissions peak.
India has also made it clear that it was opposed to a global emission reduction goal for 2050 unless an equitable burden-sharing arrangement is thrashed out. The official draft does not have the full details on this. The reference to a ?review? of countries? actions by 2016 in the official draft is also a sticking point with India. Sources, however, said by rejecting the official draft altogether at this stage, when a number of other countries were engaged in battles with each other, like China and the United States, India did not want to be seen to be adding to the problem. Therefore, it has been decided to keep the options open, wait to see how other countries want the official draft to be amended and then decide what is to be done, sources said.
